This work opens with an angular and dissonant exploration of the full range of the viola (Péter Tornyai) from its lowest C string upwards.  After this orientation, the piano (Rita Váray) joins for a freeform journey through multiple themes and textures.  In particular, listen for the lyric and warm second theme area that shows just how beautiful a solo voice the viola can be.

This first act opens with a shout that demands your attention.  You are entering an epic story that will reward your attention to every detail.  The first movement, Allegro, contrasts big, powerful chords on the piano with a second theme that is lyrical and inspired by the rhythms of modern American music where the melody is highly syncopated before the beat.  

The second act of this journey is a Psalm that runs the gamut from simple prayer to wonder and confusion. The pianist paints a picture of a soul laid bare before God inspired by the ancient Hebrew collection of Psalms.  The first theme enters with humility and calms itself entering the act of prayer. The next theme area bursts into transcendent contemplation of the nature and splendor of God and His work in creation, the middle section hears the penitent wrestling with his own failure, frustration, and confusion (in 5-beat meter) before re-fixing his focus upward away from self and toward God. 

This third act opens with a short introductory section that sets a tone for exploration to come.  The opening theme is an angular leaping melody over a difficult technical figure in the left hand which features scale movement broken up across beats with a fast and continuous appoggiatura figure.  This figure is a well-used one in string playing and here presages the orchestral textures that the pianist is called to produce.  This is the most technically demanding part of the whole and calls for a huge reserve of stamina and focus to bring to life.  Each time a theme returns, it carries every more counterpoint and layers of music and near the end it is drawing upon the entire keyboard. It ends on a note of heroic celebration as the opening theme is turned into a triumphant and brilliant coda that brings this three-movement adventure to a robust conclusion.

This piece is for string trio (violin, viola, cello) and is a reduction of the orchestral overture to an imagined and lost opera of the same name.  It would be a chamber music reduction of a popular opera work perhaps from 1890.  This whimsical backstory stems from a musical escape room set in the office of long-deceased businessman with a mysterious history.  The music evokes late Romantic era conventions and again asks the players to work through many technical and intricate parts as they represent a much larger orchestral version.  As they play, they demonstrate different musical techniques that are part of the puzzles of the room.  There is also a special theme area that is a musical lock.  But, you don’t need the escape room to enjoy the playing of Dávid Pintér, Péter Tornyai, and Orsolya Mód.

This piece (conducted by Peter Pejtsik) is a musical travelogue from a river trip (thank you Viking Cruises) from Budapest to Passau right at the turn of Springtime.  It opens with a murmuring of the Duna/Donau/Danube as the journey begins with a hopeful call of anticipation from the horns.  The river moves between destinations on shore.  Starting with a slightly off-balance dance in 5/8 we being in the gracious and radiant Hungarian capital of Budapest. After a short interlude on the water, we arrive in Bratislava, Slovakia were the 5/8 meter talks a more solemn tone in this city that had been crushed but not broken under years of Soviet occupation.  From here, the river turns merrier as we arrive in the Imperial capital city of Vienna.  The splendor of it heights are embodied in a glittering waltz.  After the celebrations and champagne, our river journey turns to a more introspective destination, Göttweig Abbey.  This is a 1000 year old place of spiritual contemplation that is accompanied by the singing of birds in the apricot orchards that surround it.  From here we are back on the river for an excursion to Český Krumlov  in Czechia.  The music paints a picture of its fortified past and the brusque feeling of the castle that still hosts a collection of live bears.  We return to the river to come to the end of the journey whose music has filled the whole piece from the beginning.  Passau, Germany sits at the confluence of the Danube and the Inn rivers and the music of the Danube rises to fill the accompaniment as the waters meet.  We are at the end but a brief epilogue transforms the melody we heard in Budapest to become a grand chorale evokes the playing of a majestic organ that celebrates the many stunning cathedrals throughout the trip.  A final murmur of the eddying river brings a horn call to bring our journey to a symmetric conclusion.  es here